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Those who are burdened with Marfan syndrome face a lifetime of multi-organ system issues including potential aortic aneurysm, but help may be on the way in the U.K. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued a recommendation that these patients be treated with personalized external aortic root support (PEARS) to treat both aortic root expansion and aortic dissection, although the agency indicated that this procedure is not quite ready for routine use in the National Health Service.
The U.S. FDA’s proposal to restructure the Quality System Regulation (QSR) with ISO 13485, the international quality system standard, is a major shift for affected industry, but there are strictly administrative issues associated with this proposal. Several of those who have commented to the docket have expressed misgivings as to the proposed 12-month compliance deadline upon issuance of a final rule.
Ethylene oxide (EtO) has been a mainstay in medical device sterilization for decades, but fears of carcinogenicity sparked protests outside EtO sterilization plants in Georgia and Illinois in 2018. While the COVID-19 pandemic overrode those concerns for two years, the FDA has opened a pilot program for conversion of sterilization methods that would require fewer regulatory filings than would otherwise be the case.
Detecting the spread of cancer is a high priority for most health systems, but the U.K. National Health Service currently has a limited range of options when it comes to detecting breast metastases. That may change soon thanks to a review by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which may endorse the use of the Sentimag system with Magtrace.
The Biden administration recently reported that a new round of free rapid tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus is available to the public, a development that coincides with a new surge of the latest sub-variant of the omicron variant. However, the administration is also expected to renew the public health emergency (PHE) for the pandemic, even as the White House continues to press Congress for another $22 billion in pandemic-related funding.
Device makers do not engage in direct-to-consumer advertisement at the same pace as drug makers, but advertising and promotions are still a minefield of potential enforcement action for the unwary manufacturer. According to Jesse Atkins and Nate Downing of Gardner Law in Stillwater, Minn., even a minor skirmish with the FDA can result in an extensive review of standard operating procedures, a potentially expensive and time-consuming distraction from companies fighting for market share in the hotly contested U.S. market.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a complaint in U.S. district court related to marketing of a pelvic muscle rehabilitation system by the Prometheus Group of Raleigh, N.C., stating that the company encouraged health care professionals to reuse rectal pressure sensors and anorectal manometry catheters on multiple patients.
Clinical laboratories and hospitals have routine commercial interactions, and most of those are entirely legal, but this is not always the case. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently decreed that an arrangement in which the hospital pays the lab for blood specimen collection handling services, or a “draw fee,” would not be permissible under the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), reinforcing an existing understanding that such activities present a significant legal hazard for operators of clinical labs.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has posted its version of U.S. FDA user fee legislation, a bill that echoes many of the primary features of the version already at play in the House of Representatives. One critical difference is that the Senate bill includes legislation that would enable the FDA to regulate lab-developed tests (LDTs), the so-called Verifying Accurate, Leading-edge IVCT Development (VALID) Act, the omission of which from the House bill ruffled a few feathers. The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) responded to the Senate bill with a May 17 statement applauding the inclusion of the VALID Act in the Senate user fee bill.
The European Commission (EC) has proposed new legislation directed toward formation of a European Health Data Space (EHDS), which is nominally intended to address some perceived gaps in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While this legislative proposal seems to interact with both the GDPR and pending EU legislation on artificial intelligence, the EHDS takes on the massive challenge of compulsory interoperability of electronic health records (EHRs). The EC unveiled the proposal with an emphasis on health data accessibility, although both the European Council and the European Parliament will now have their say over how the legislation will ultimately read.
